• Also: Almaz Ayana and Katie Ledecky show records made to be broken – like, by a lot: Best of Day 7
The National’s sports team is helping you keep up to date with what is happening in Rio while most of us in the UAE were sleeping. Here is today’s Daily 5.
1 Please don’t go
What if Michael Phelps did come back for one more Olympics? Wouldn't that be crazy?
Why not? Would it be any more ridiculous, to give one more Olympic go at 35 in four years’ time, than the all-encompassing dominance we’ve already witnessed out of the American swimmer the last 16 years?
Phelps won his 23rd and presumably final gold medal at the Olympics on Saturday. It is a staggering number to consider, staggering to comprehend his overall impact on Olympic history. The guy has more individual titles than Leonidas of Rhodes now, after all.
Here’s a hot take, though, that gets whispered around every now and then: Phelps ain’t all that great. Yes, he’s uniquely talented in his sport and uniquely excellent at what he does, but he’s also, for all his Olympic glory, only once ever just been the fastest through the pool in a straight swim (200m freestyle, Beijing 2008). He butterflies and he medleys and he relays, but if he were a track and field star he wouldn’t be Usain Bolt, he’d be Ashton Eaton.
And, I hope, by articulating that argument, it sounds as silly as it is (also: Ashton Eaton is awesome, apologies for disingenuously implying otherwise).
Want a fun fact? The fastest Phelps has ever swam across a pool and back (47.51 seconds, 100m freestyle relay at Beijing 2008) would have been good for gold for this year. And in 2012. If it was physically possible to swim everything, Phelps probably would have, and he probably would have been the best at it all.
His achievements, his record, is unimpeachable. There’s no way, really, to do justice to so anomalous a figure.
So let’s not try. Let’s hope maybe he gets the itch again in a couple years and finds himself in Tokyo.
Then we can worry about properly celebrating him.
2 Seamless transition
For nearly a decade, spanning two Olympics and five world championships, sprinting’s premier 100 metres title has belonged almost exclusively to Jamaica. That has largely been down to Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (with assists at the worlds once from Yohan Blake and once from Veronica Campbell).
That run wouldn’t appear to be abating, at least on the women’s side.
Elaine Thompson took the baton last night from Fraser-Pryce, winning in a scintillating 10.71 seconds that is the fastest at an Olympics since Florence Griffith-Joyner at Seoul 88.
She’s only 24, so there’s a very good chance we’ll see her at least at one more Olympics, solidly keeping the title of fastest alive with Jamaica.
“I look up to her so much but I never thought I’d be sitting here today,” she said.
3 Other highlights from Day 8
• Mo Farah retained his 10,000m title from London 2012 for Great Britain. Jeff Henderson brought the long jump title back to the United States for the first time since Athens 2004. And Nafissatou Thiam dramatically edged Jessica Ennis-Hill for heptathlon gold in a quality day for athletics.
• More cycling gold for Team GB, as Katie Archibald, Laura Trott, Elinor Barker and Joanna Rowsell retained their own London 2012 title in the women’s team pursuit. The British earlier won the men’s team sprint and men’s team pursuit.
• Tennis has had a resoundingly successful Olympics. The sometimes-mocked Olympic tournament has seen a fantastically memorable run by Juan Martin del Potro on the men's side, and Monica Puig sealed gold in the women's final to become the first medallist from Puerto Rico.
• The United States leads in the medal count with 60 (24 gold), followed by China with 41 (13 gold) and 10 golds from Britain (30 overall). We're keeping track of all the gold medal winners.
4 Tweet of the day
Man, would you look at that?
LEGEND pic.twitter.com/SwwXdRE2AH
5 Video of the day
I’m not sure who this is or where this video was taken or, frankly, why. But it was making the rounds on Twitter and, well, you have to respect such commitment to making viral videos:
